The Unexpected Loveliness
by LucyLives
Summary: And beyond the cold air and frowning faces and bruised limbs, there was an unexpected loveliness about the world today that she had never noticed before. {One of my reviewers called this "the best love story I've ever read". Guess you'll have to decide that for yourself. Warning: may include abuse, drinking, drugs, sex, and death.}
1. The Life of Katelin

_Not really sure where I'm going with this. I think there will be a romance between this character and one of the boys, but I'm not sure which. Any ideas?_

_Thanks so much for reading! Please tell me what you think!_

_All my love,_

_The Author Lady_

I had a dream that I was on a stage in front of the world, not doing anything, just standing there, looking out at a sea of cold faces, seeing them stare back at me. Old men, young men, children, teenage girls, poor and rich, beautiful and ugly. There were faces from all walks of life, faces with stories of all variations.

And then, without any warning at all, an unidentifiable voice screams, "Get off the stage!"

A wave of sound crashes into me as the world stands up and, ridiculously, begins to shout at me in unison. "Off, off! Off, whore! Off, whale! Off!" The strobe lights blind me, and, as strange objects strike my face, I cower and cover my face and try to block out the sounds of the world affirming everything that I hear in my head day in and out. The world bears down on me, surging and flowing, radiating hatred and fury and disgust, and…

…a cheerful voice breaks through the haze of my sleep, tearing me out of the nightmare, shaking, sweating, and crying a little. At first, I think it is my father, but that, of course, is completely absurd. It's the nameless man on the radio, the man who has woken me up consistently for the past seven years or so, telling the sleepy early morning the information they scraped up for the morning news. Nothing ever happens in South Park, at least not that anyone would want to report on.

My eyes are tired, but glad to see the grey light of sun through my frosty window, especially after the nightmare, and I roll myself out of bed. I avoid my reflection in the mirror. I don't want to set a negative tone to my day before it has even begun, and, besides, I know what I will see there: tangled, mousy-colored hair, skin like sour milk, freckles that are much too prominent against my pale face, and thick, dark eyebrows. My eyes are the only part of myself that I like, but one of them is currently hidden by an unsightly purple bruise, which, by the way it feels, must be puffing. That means it's getting better, but it also means that it probably looks the worst it will, since it always gets worse before it gets better.

It's always been my responsibility to get myself up and ready, ever since I was very young. My worn, blue parka is laying on my old wooden desk chair, where I always put it the former night. Shoving it over my head, I see that the temperature on the thermometer outside my window reads somewhere below five degrees, but I ignore it. I don't really have any other coats than the parka anyway.

Dust particles dance in shafts of light as I creep down the hallway, doing my best to make as little noise as possible. I count the doors as I pass them: older brother's (smelling of strange substances), baby sister's (smelling of neglect and sour milk), and Theirs (smelling of tenseness and distance). Then comes the open living room, with its stained, flowered sofa, small, square television, and one of Them: my father, clutching an empty bottle with the hand he hits with, lays prone on the ground. In this moment, the world seems almost peaceful, as if there is only silence and me in all the earth.

I rush out of the living room in sudden fear that he will awaken without warning, with the rage of a bull elephant, and his marital ring flashing, threatening to bruise my other eye. My small backpack sits on a rickety kitchen chair, next to my tutoring materials and two bananas I have laid out for myself, stolen from the school cafeteria. Grabbing all, I slide through the screen door as quietly as it is possible to move through any such door, and am surprised, as I am every morning, how incredibly cold the air is.

The bus stop to South Park High School isn't far, but it's much colder than I expected (my thermometer tends to underestimate the weather), and the wind seems to sneak in through the seams of my clothes so that once I reach the sign, I am shivering violently.

As usual, there are four other people standing there. As usual, they ignore me. As usual, I stand at a safe distance from them with my hair hanging over the left side of my face to cover my blackened eye, watching them out of the other eye.

Even as seniors, they haven't changed much. Stan Marsh's hair is still pitch black, and he's still the unacknowledged leader of the four; of course, years of playing almost every sport known to South Park have made him stocky and strong, but he's still obsessed with Wendy Testaburger, and still throws up sometimes when he's around her, though he does his best to conceal it. Kyle Broflovski is still Jewish. He's still ashamed of his red hair, and never takes off his hat. In recent years, he's become something of the school's sweetheart, partially because of his stage of dressing like a member of Jersey Shore and partially because, I believe, he has a genuinely kind heart, but he still has absolutely no idea what to do with girls. Eric Cartman is still fat; in fact, he's fatter than he ever has been. He's still a developing sociopath, still has a voice that could be likened to a nail being dragged down a cheese grater, and is still generally hated by everyone in South Park, all of which are unlikely to change anytime soon. Kenny still wears what seems to be an orange jumpsuit, though he has taken the hood off to reveal shaggy blonde hair and blue eyes. To no one's surprise, he has proven himself to be the most notorious womanizer that South Park High School has seen in recent memory, and is currently dating Bebe, Lisa, Red, Nicole, Rebecca, and the Goth girl, Henrietta , none of whom seem to know about each other. He had a drug phase, but seems to have gotten over it in a way that his brother (who is currently in jail for selling meth) had not been able to do, and seems to be smarter than he wants to admit or let on.

I've always sort of wanted to talk to these people.

Someday, I tell myself.

The bus pulls up. Same angry lady bus driver. They climb on first, and take the same spots they have taken for the past four years: front of the bus, Kyle next to Stan, Kenny next to Cartman. I sit in the back, so that no one will ask about the bruises on my forearms or make fun of me for not being pretty enough, same as always.

Stomach growls. Bite banana, which tastes hard. The day looks like it will have grey skies and gentle snow, as it does every day.

And I will drift through school with my hair over my shiner, not saying anything as teachers place papers and tests on my desk and whisper, "Best score in the class, as always", not looking at Mr. Mackey as he passes by me several times in the hall, trying to get a look at my face. I will tutor children for hours after school to try, in a desperate, futile attempt, to earn some money for the colleges that are begging for me to attend but somehow unwilling to pay enough so that I can actually go. I will walk home, do my homework, eat dinner if I'm lucky, and, if my father has had a good day, will go to bed without any extra bruises or cuts.

Same as always.

_So, what do you think? Where shall I go from here? _


	2. The Life of Kenny

_I decided that, since, to me, Kenny is the most interesting of the four boys, I would tell the story in two perspectives: from Katelin's and his. But this doesn't mean that they're going to be the pairing. Oh, no. Of the six comments I got, it was too mixed. I'm just going to roll with it and see what people want as the story goes on._

_Much love, _

_The Author Lady_

Last night, I dreamed of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I flew across the world in luxury I had only imagined, tumbling around with girls who didn't mind if I didn't buy them flowers or take them to dinner, was loved and adored as I never had been. It was fucking amazing. When I woke up in my bed, tangled in sweaty sheets and panting a little, my groans of frustration were so loud that my mother actually pulled herself out of her hangover to come see if I was dying (it wouldn't have been the first time). I would have given anything to go back to that land, where I was someone and had everything I had ever wanted.

Here, in South Park, I am a nobody with six girlfriends he only fucks because he's bored as shit and doesn't know what to do with himself. I am an almost-adult whose lush parents have decided to send him to free poor people tutoring so that they have some way of kicking me out of the house after I graduate, unlike my brother, who stuck around cooking meth in the basement until the police threw him in jail. Reality sucks ass, and I'm still pissed off about being shoved into it this morning, especially after that dream.

It gets worse when Cartman's voice, stringent as always, sounds from next to me, and I am brought back to the worn leather bus seat by the bus window, where I have sat every morning for the past four years. "Hey! Hey, guys! Guys! Guys!"

Apparently he hasn't really said something until he's said it three times in a row. "What, Cartman?"

Cartman starts a little- after a childhood of muffled words, people are still adjusting to the fact that, since I've removed my hood, my voice is actually audible now- but recovers within seconds. "Look at that girl." He shoves a sausage-shaped finger towards the back of the bus.

Turning where he is pointing, I see the brown-haired girl who has waited at the high school bus stop for four years, always standing apart from us, never saying anything. She's sitting in the last seat of the last row, and seems to be reading something: her head is bent and her hair is hanging over her face.

"Yeah, Cartman, she's in our grade. I think her name is Katelin." Kyle says.

I never knew she had a name.

"Haven't you ever noticed her before?" Stan asks.

"Not really," The fatass responds.

Kyle snickers. "Yeah, probably because she's in all the college level courses and you're retaking all the stuff from last year."

"That is not it, Jewboy!" Cartman shrieks, causing the bus driver (who was reprimanded for yelling at us too much) to affix him with a scowl that could curdle milk. He gets quiet immediately, then, a few seconds later, whispers, "I don't really pay attention to ugly chicks."

"Why do you think she's ugly?" Stan asks. It's a valid question. As far as I can remember, no one has ever seen the girl when her hair hasn't been hanging over her face like a weird sort of curtain or something. There's really no evidence to say if she's ugly or not.

"Well, why would she do that thing with her hair if she didn't have something awful to hide?" This is also a valid question. But why the hell is he asking it in the first place?

"Why are you even bringing this up?" I ask. "It's not really any of our business."

Cartman glares at me and his chins wobble, as they usually do whenever he has to explain his thinking to someone. "Because I want to know, that's why! After four years of this chick being in our class, hardly anyone has ever seen what she actually looks like, and I'm going to be the first one! We are going to meet by my locker to discuss how we're gonna do this."

Stan, Kyle, and I all glance at each other. Stan shrugs: we all know that once Cartman has gotten interested in something, it takes a huge amount of energy and force to get him to drop it. We might as well just ride this one out.

As Cartman suggested, we meet at his locker before school to discuss the girl. I'm pretty sure that none of us, considering the fact that we're not inches away from being certifiably psychotic, find it as imperative as he does to know whether or not she's really ugly, but we all find her interesting. I mean, this is someone who never talks to anyone, is generally recognized as a genius, and has never let anyone see her face. We're all a little curious.

"Okay, okay, guys, so I was thinking and I have this awesome idea."

We brace ourselves. Cartman's awesome ideas have only increased in their shock value over the years.

"I was thinking-"

All I see is a blur of blonde curls before I am almost bowled over by Bebe, who, as usual, is acting as though we haven't seen each other for nine years odd. "Hey, babe!" She gives me the typical Stevens greeting: an enormous, wet, very lipsticky kiss that is more like a suction than anything else. "I _missed_ you, baby!"

"Missed you too, Bebe. How's it going?"

"Pretty good! I went to the mall with Wendy last night, and we got pink lemonade lip gloss-"

"Anyway," Cartman goes on, annoyed, "so here's my idea-"

"—and I put it on today before I saw you-"

"—we meet after school and-"

"—I was hoping you would taste it! I was-"

"—then we talk about-"

"-licking my lips over and over again yesterday and I swear it tastes just like pink lemonade!"

The morning bell rings. Thank god. I was getting a headache. Maybe it was from the pink lemonade.

First period is Statistics, with Stan, Kyle, Red, Rebecca, and Katelin, who sits in the back and takes notes quietly, her hair still hanging.

Red and Rebecca both sit four chairs away from me. Red keeps trying to make sexy faces at me during class, and Rebecca keeps passing me notes. Both of them think they have competition in the other.

Eventually, Red has licked her lips so many times that the teacher sends her to the nurse to get chapstick. One of Rebecca's notes ends up getting passed to Butters, and is caught by the teacher, who makes a very confused, slightly flattered Butters read the note aloud to a snickering class and a mortified Rebecca. Stan and Kyle can hardly contain themselves.

After second period Physics, the school is on break.

I hang out with the guys and talk about how pissed we are that Mr. Garrison, now a history instructor, is still teaching us in high school. Lisa Berger joins us, and comes bearing seven packages of Hostess cupcakes, which we split evenly (one for me, Stan, and Kyle, two for Lisa and Cartman). In exchange for the cakes, I kiss her once on the cheek. It's about all I can do with all the other girls in the hallway.

Lunch is corndogs, like we're seven.

Cartman has four, I have six because I am unlikely to have much for dinner, and Katelin, who I catch sight of after we have sat down, fills her tray with five bananas, six apples, seven corn dogs, and four brownies. For a moment, I wonder how she's able to eat so much, since she's pretty small, but then I see her slip all the bananas, apples, brownies, and five of the corndogs into the purse she's carrying. That's a really good idea. I wish boys could get away with carrying purses.

Cartman obviously wants to keep telling us his plan, but doesn't: Nicole sits on my lap all of lunch, eating most of my tater tots, talking about the dress she bought for homecoming, which is, by my estimates, four months away, presenting a problem: I must choose who I'm going with, since all my six girlfriends probably expect me to go with them.

Oh, the problems of me.

Gym class, the biggest joke ever thought up, is after lunch. Everyone, including the teacher, is too weighed down with cornmeal-covered hot dogs to move very much, so we have a "rest day". I sit on the bleachers with Henrietta, watch her smoke cigarette after cigarette, and listen to her talk about how much she despises everything in the world and how she wants to dig her eyes out so that she doesn't have to see it anymore. She invites me to a séance she's holding on Saturday, promising that there will be an Ouija board and several heartfelt attempts to resurrect Poe's spirit. I accept politely. I'm her ideal boyfriend: I don't talk, so she has more time to do it.

School ends. It couldn't have lasted longer.

I wait with the guys at the bus stop, even though I have to stay for the tutoring my parents are forcing me to go to, and am bemused by the fact that Cartman, ever unrelenting, is still talking about Katelin.

"Okay, so here's the deal: she has three classes at the college, right? And she walks to get there, right?"

"I don't know." I say.

"And then what happens is she comes back here to get her stuff, right?"

"I don't know." I say again. "How the hell do you know all this stuff?"

"Don't ask questions, Kenny, just observe the master. Oh, look, there she is!" And, sure enough, there is a small figure in a blue parka walking about two hundred feet away from us on the block, carrying a stack of books that must be a fourth of her height.

"Okay," Cartman continues, "the way I see it, there's no way that she's going to let us see what she looks like, so we're going to have to make her do it somehow."

"So what was your plan, then?" Stan asks.

"This." Cartman says, and sticks out his foot just as she is passing us. Katelin's ankle catches on his chubby one, and she hits the concrete with a soft thud. The pile of stuff she was carrying- _Jane Eyre_, a huge college-level calculus textbook, a copy of old English poetry we're studying in advanced English, a large blue binder (which splits open and sprays papers everywhere, which then blow all over the street), something called _A Complete Dummy's Guide to Not Failing in a Quantum Mechanics Class_, and a green banana- spill into dirty, slushy snow.

Everyone standing at the bus sign stops talking for a minute to stare at her, but then they go right back to whatever they were doing. Katelin doesn't move for a minute or two, but then she rolls herself over and sits up to look at the four of us. Her hair, which seems to be inclined to hang back from her face anyway, has bounced from her features to let Cartman see what he had wanted to.

She has a pale, oval face with big ears. She has a few freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her eyes are gorgeous, or at least the one I can see is. And we know why she hangs her hair: one side of her face is a mass of bruises and cuts, ranging from the top of her forehead to the line of her jaw. Her left eye is completely swollen shut and the skin around is discolored green and purple.

She doesn't yell at Cartman or smack him across the head or even glare at him, only fixes him- all of us- with a look that seems almost disappointed, then gets up, tries to brush the mud off her blue parka (only succeeding in smearing it), gathers up the wet books, picks up the papers she can reach, and walks into the school.

I feel sick.

Cartman is laughing. "Did you _see_ that face? Holy shit, dude! No wonder she hides it! If the left side of _my _face looked like that, I'd do the same thing."

"Are you actually that much of a fucking retard, Cartman?" Stan snaps. "Just shut up. Leave her alone."

Cartman wipes his eyes with his thick fingers. "I mean, her papers spilling everywhere, that look on her face…just fucking, fucking priceless!"

"Maybe I should give you a black eye, and see how fucking funny you find it." Stan snarls.

Kyle looks genuinely confused. "Where did she get them? They look awful."

"I don't know, dude, but _that_ was one of the best ideas I've had in a long time." Cartman starts laughing again.

I walk away, ignoring my friends as they call out after me. I'm not sure if I can handle much more of Cartman's idiocy without beating him up or something like that. It's time for tutoring to start, anyway.

The tutoring thing is actually really lame. It was started by Kyle's mom, who decided that it would be good for all the kids to have free school help. Made for students of all ages enrolled in South Park public schools, every tutor is someone near the age of the person being tutored. Kyle's little brother, Ike, now in the sixth grade, is helping a bunch of kids that look like they're in elementary school with some sort of early math. Henrietta is there, sitting sullenly as a pimply teen I don't know points to a piece of paper and talks, probably trying to get her to do some sort of English. As I watch, she digs her cigarette into the paper and flips him off.

Ever classy.

Mr. Garrison is sitting in a desk at the head of the room, reading the Karma Sutra, so I assume he's the guy who's supposed to be running everything. I walk up to him, and ask, "Hey, who am I with?"

He runs his finger down a paper spreadsheet, then points to the desk at the back corner of the room. Katelin is sitting there by herself, with the muddy stack of textbooks beside her.

Well, shit.

_Thank you so much for reading! Please, please review! I need to know what you guys want to see happen next._


	3. The Moped and Bruise Cream

I love tutoring.

My tutoree, a freshman girl with Downs Syndrome, Helen, is probably the best thing in my life right now. She has blonde, usually windswept-looking hair, a sweet smile, and eyes that don't see the things about me that others see; I'm so comfortable with her that I usually put my hair up in a ponytail while we're working together, which is how I think best, anyway. She always gives me hugs when we're done, and even though they sometimes grate on the bruises on my arms and chest, I always love getting them.

I could really use one of Helen's hugs right now, after that incident with Eric Cartman. I suppose I really shouldn't be all that surprised that something like that happened. After all, in the four years I've been in class with Cartman, I've heard that he tried to start an athletic association for crack babies, start anti-Semitic riots, try to use stem cells to build fast food restaurants, try to molest Butters in his sleep, beat up a midget, pretend he had Tourette's so that he could insult everyone, and attempted to infect Kyle with AIDS. In comparison to everything else he's done, this is pretty normal for Cartman, but that doesn't mean that it makes my life any better. I've put a lot of effort in trying to hide the evidence of everything I'm so unhappy with, and Cartman wrecks it all in one fell swoop. I suppose it was stupid of me to think that I could hide it forever.

Someone clears their throat beside me. Jerked out of my thoughts, I turn to see Kenny standing there. He clears his throat. "I'm…uh…here for English tutoring."

Huh? "Where's Helen?" I ask it before I know I have.

Kenny looks incredibly confused on top of being uncomfortable. "Who the hell is Helen?"

"She's the girl I tutor." I look at the schedule that's always on my table when I arrive, and see that Mr. Garrison has written me a note, in pretty nice cursive, telling me that Helen's mom removed her from tutoring because she's been doing a lot better in school pretty consistently as of late. So now I have Kenny, I guess.

Well, shit.

I realize my hair is in a ponytail, put there in anticipation of learning and laughing with Helen, and my eye starts throbbing painfully, as if Kenny's gaze consists of shards of glass. I start to take my hair down, then realize, though it might be comforting, it would probably be a moot point now that he's seen my face already. That fact doesn't stop my eye from aching, though.

I know that I've been through worse shit. I'll just deal with this the way I do everything else: one moment at a time. "Okay, sit down then."

He does.

I'm not really sure what to do now. He looks like he wants to say something, but I'm afraid that it will be some sort of an apology for Cartman's actions, and, frankly, I'd rather forget about that for right now. I have other things to worry about that need my attention more than that. So I do what I think I'm supposed to. "Okay, so do you have any idea what you need help on?"

"Yeah, kinda." He reaches into a backpack that is almost as torn as mine, and pulls out a book- _A Tale of Two Cities_, the novel we're currently studying in AP English. Despite myself, I smile. I adore Dickens. "I started reading the first chapter, but I couldn't even get through that."

And, just like that, my true nature kicks in and I forget that this is someone I should feel awkward with. Books do that to me. I wave my hand. "Oh, don't even worry about that. No one likes the first chapter, or even the first part of the book, but once you get to the second part, it's smooth sailing." I get out my copy, and open it to the first page.

The rest of the session went by so fast that I wasn't really sure it was all happening. We got through the entire first part of the book, talked about what we thought would happen, discussed the literary devices that had showed up so far in the book, complained about how awful and wordy it was, and ate most of my food, except for the three corndogs and the brownies I needed to save for my sister and brother's dinner. Kenny was much, much smarter than I had ever thought he was, and, though I felt incredibly disloyal for thinking it, it was much easier to talk to him than it was to talk to Helen (though he didn't smile or laugh as much, and probably would have sooner jumped out a window than hugged me).

I only realized how late it had gotten when I glanced up and noticed that only three people were left in the room: Mr. Garrison, who seemed to have finished reading the Karma Sutra, and was now involved with some other sex book, and Kyle's little brother, Ike, and a child who looked as though he had some form of mental incapacity. "Holy shit."

Kenny, who had been sneaking a look at the next chapter, looked up as well. "Wow. Everyone's gone. What time is it?"

"Looks like it's about seven now," I say, looking at the clock on the wall, which is, as usual, approximately two hours behind and reads five fifty-five. "We should probably go soon." Now that the tutoring is over, I start to feel myself withdrawing in again, as I tend to do instinctively as a form of emotional protection. However, Kenny doesn't seem to be acting any differently now that we're done, and, to my surprise, I actually stop introverting.

He looks a little worried. "Fuck. I have a date in half an hour at Shakey. I better make it if I don't want to totally get chewed out."

"Which girlfriend is it this time?" About five seconds after I've said it, I realize how rude that was, but by the time I've started apologizing, Kenny is laughing too hard for me to say anything.

"Henrietta. Thanks for asking."

"Oh, that should be fun. Better bring some pictures of giggling babies if you don't want to be drawn into a Goth phase or something." Again, five seconds before I realize I'm being rude, but apparently Kenny isn't offended: he's laughing so loudly that both Mr. Garrison and Ike start glaring at us.

"I'll make sure to take precautions." He says as we gather up our stuff. "Hey, do you mind if I walk out with you?"

"Not at all." I take out one of the brownies from my pack and munch on it as we leave the classroom. "Hey, nice job today. You're smart."

He grins. "Thanks. You're a good tutor. You know, you should really talk more in class. You're actually hilarious."

I don't really know what to say to that, so I don't say anything and neither does he.

Outside, the sky is dark, and the snow is white and it muffles all the noise in the town. Kenny walks up to the oldest, ugliest looking machine I have ever seen in my life and climbs onto the seat. "Is that a moped?" I ask. "I can't really tell right now."

He grimaces. "Yeah, it's a moped, Roketa 150cc. I got it for a hundred bucks, and it runs, so that's all that matters to me."

"Okay," I say, "when the coroner comes around asking questions about you and saying you drove straight off a bridge, I'll tell them all about this Roketa and how it doesn't look like its breaks will last you fifty feet out of the parking lot."

"Just promise to make a nice eulogy." He starts up the motor. "Oh, and by the way: if you go to the pharmacy, they have this really great bruise cream. It's only four bucks."

Bruise cream. I had almost forgotten. My eye starts throbbing again, and it is only when it does so that I realize it had stopped four hours ago and had not bothered me for the whole tutoring session. "Thanks."

"Yeah, Stan used it back when his sister was at the house and was beating him up all the time." He pauses. "Uh. Best not tell him I told you that."

I muster a smile. "I'll keep it under wraps. See you tomorrow?"

He pulls out of the parking spot, nods, and flashed me a thumbs up.

As I watch him pull away, I suddenly realize that there are goosebumps up and down my arms: I've completely forgotten to put on my jacket, yet for some reason, I wasn't cold until now. I shrug it on, but it's so threadbare that it doesn't help much. Suddenly, the night is darker and the snow is grey and the muffled sounds are not peaceful but lonely.

And I am reminded of the fact that, no matter how beautiful and happy moments can be for me, I am still a poor, ugly girl with bruises all over her face and body and no conceivable way to escape her situation. There is really no reason to even try to improve anything: it will most likely never get better.

Yet, for some reason, as I walk home, I go into the pharmacy and buy the bruising ointment with crumpled bills from the bottom of my backpack.

_Thank you all for your continued support! I can't wait to see where this is going to go! Please continue to read and review. I love you all._

_Much love, _

_The Author Lady_


	4. Dumpsters, Burgers, and UV Vodka

Date with Henrietta goes as it usually does.

I told Katelin we were meeting at Shakey, which wasn't a lie. My moped putters up next to the neon signs and burger posters, and she immediately emerges from the alleyway next to the restaurant, dressed in entirely in black fishnet and carrying two bottles of vodka and a bag of Shakey's junk. Parking my sputtering machine in the closest spot, I hurry into the alley to sit on a dumpster next to her.

It's the usual. I have two double cheeseburgers (one for my breakfast tomorrow), large fries, a soda, and a large chocolate milkshake; she has a triple patty burger and a small vanilla milkshake and a small salad doused in ranch to feel like she's being healthy. She doesn't stop talking the whole time. She talks about her idiot Goth friends, how much she despises the Emos, what the Vamp kids are getting up to nowadays, her pregnant friend in the next town over who's planning on having an abortion, and how much she hates all the cheerleaders (including my five other girlfriends). I don't think she smiles for all the time she's talking, nor do I get any chance to do anything but nod at her and eat my slightly leathery cheeseburger. It's actually pretty good, once you chew enough.

The vodka is our dessert. We gulp it from the bottle, seeing who can swallow it the fastest. It's awful stuff, but it was cheap and it does what it's supposed to do. After it's all gone, before the alcohol kicks in, we chuck the glass out into the street. If one of us hits a car, we have decided, that person has to do whatever the other one wants. Neither of us do.

Vodka works quickly.

The next thing that I remember is the owner of Shakey, a huge woman with bright red hair and an enormous mole, slamming her way out of the restaurant's back door and throwing things at us, screaming for us to get off her property. Henrietta and I stumble out of the alleyway and we are laughing and Henrietta's clothes are torn and the lights are very bright and they spin and nothing makes sense at all. Then we are suddenly in a park or something and we are kissing and we fall down into the grass and writhe and then sleep.

Normally, when I fall asleep on a night like this, I don't dream or, if I do, I forget them. But tonight is different.

Tonight, I dream of bruise cream.

I open my eyes to the bright sunlight of what seems to be midday and a head that is splitting down the center of my forehead. Henrietta is face down on the grass next to me, snoring heavily. Her clothes are disarranged and her dark makeup is smeared all over a face that, underneath everything, looks round and innocent.

I shake her awake. "Hey, wake up."

She makes a sound that sounds like a mixture between a cough and a sneeze. My head throbs. The world spins. I fall back. I sleep. I dream of London and Paris and a sweet, sad smile.

The hands that shake me awake are large and rough, as is the voice, though I hear it as if through cotton. "Kid. Kid, wake the fuck up."

I open my eyes and see Henrietta sitting cross-legged next to me, smoking a cigarette. Someone who seems to be a hobo is crouching in front of me, glaring at me.

Well, this is interesting.

"What time is it?" My voice sounds slurred, even to me.

"It's like two, I think." Henrietta says.

"Shouldn't you two be in school?" The hobo asks.

"Maybe." I say. "What's it to you?"

He grabs both of our arms—Henrietta squeals as if she's being molested—and shoves us towards the direction of the school, which, I realize suddenly, is right next to the park we were sleeping in. "Go to school so that you can get a job, you lazy bums!"

We run—or do the best that we can—out of the park, and Henrietta yells behind us, "You're the bum!" and we laugh and laugh even though it wasn't even that funny.

School is over by the time that we get there, which is just as well: Henrietta's clothes are so torn up that they're half falling off, I most likely look like I got smacked in the head with a hot shovel, we're both have dirt and grass everywhere, and both of us probably smell sweaty and boozy.

Henrietta's Goth friends are sitting in the school's shadows, like the sun will burn them; she gives me a short, tongue-filled kiss, and flounces over to mope with them.

My friends are, as usual, waiting by the bus stop.

"Kenny," Cartman says as I walk up, "you, literally, look like shit. Like, literally. Shit. Shit. Spelled S-H-I-T."

"I'm sorry, Cartman, would you mind saying 'shit' a few more times? I haven't gotten the idea just yet." I snap.

"Dude, where were you all day?" Kyle asks. "All your girlfriends have been asking about you."

"I was wearing an orange robe in my room, with a shit ton of incense and meditation, searching my soul for the reasons why I live what a lot of people would consider to be an awesome life, but am still so unhappy all the time."

"But actually?" Stan asks.

"I was hung-over and sleeping in the park with Henrietta."

Cartman sighs. "Ah, the cycle. Like father, like son. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, you guys."

For a second, I want to hit him and beat his smug, fat face into the concrete, but then I realize something awful and embarrassing: he's right. I am just like my father. So I just tell them I'll see them later and walk towards the school.

It's time for tutoring, I guess, to find out what everything I missed today.

It might just me the hangover, but it seems like Katelin's face looks better already: less green and purple, more light blue. She must have gotten the bruise cream. I don't know what they put in there, but it must be some awesome shit. Her hair is up in a messy bun, and she's wearing, as she seems to always be, a huge, baggy sweatshirt and jeans that look to be two sizes too big for her, making her look almost shrunken.

She looks up when I'm about ten feet away, and her eyes are suddenly full of fear.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I ask, when I reach the table, where she sits frozen, her hands clutching _A Tale of Two Cities _so hard that her knuckles are completely white. "You look kind of—"

"UV Vodka." Her voice is almost robotic. "Ten dollars at the nearby Super America, where the cashier will sell it to anyone who slips him a tip, regardless of age or state in life. He'll sell it to, say, an abusive father, and, apparently, even a teenage boy."

I search for words. I find none. My tongue has tied itself into knots.

She says something very quietly, and I see that there are tears in her eyes (when eyes are that big, it's hard to hide anything in them, from emotion to water). In a few successive, brusque movements, she takes down her ponytail, shakes her hair rolls up her huge sweatshirt sleeves to reveal bruises in finger patterns on her forearms, scoops up her books, and brushes past me, not looking at anyone. She leaves a scent of oranges.

After a minute of standing there, I figure out what she said before leaving: "You smell like him."

And, surprisingly belatedly considering the amount of vodka I drank, I have the urge to vomit.

_I have big plans for where this is going. I think I have some idea now. Thank God. I hate being aimless. Please, please continue to read and review! Your support means more to me than anything._

_All my love,_

_The Author Lady _


	5. The Blessing of Cayenne Pepper

I walk home as quickly as I can: it's quickly getting dark. It seems lime the days get progressively shorter, colder, and darker with each week that passes.

I feel like I'm drowning in self-hatred. Everyone at school already thinks that I'm weird, and now, on top of being ugly and strange, I have made myself an emotional wreck. It's been so long since I've lost control of my emotions like that, and it's as if I'm a little child again, unable to curb her feelings.

Yet there comes a time when I have been through enough that I just don't really care all that much anymore how people see me, and I've just about reached that point. I haven't eaten breakfast, since there was nothing in the house but booze when I woke up, or lunch, since I was busy in Mackey's office trying to convince him that I gotten into a fight in an alleyway when someone took my backpack on my way home (he didn't buy it, obviously). I am unlikely to eat dinner (though I managed to steal some tuna fish sandwiches a gas station for my siblings). I am so hungry that I feel as if I could shrivel inside myself and fade, though that could also be because of the embarrassment of my extreme overreaction. So Kenny had been drinking all day. It was none of my business what he did. So he smelled like stale clothes and women's cheap perfume and hard liquor. So do half the men in South Park after nearly every Saturday. It didn't fucking matter. It shouldn't fucking matter.

My house is essentially a single-story flat; it has a porch with rotten floorboards that snap when you step on them too hard and a screen door that has so many holes in it slightly resembles a beehive of sorts. Most of the windows have broken panes. The pale yellow paint is peeling. Some of the shingles are hanging off their hinges. It looks almost like no one is living there. Underneath a thin layer of frost, the grass is almost half a foot long, and so dead it's nearly white; my three year old sister, Cayenne, is sitting on the front lawn, playing with her plush dog, Snuffy. My mom tells me she looks a lot like me, but Cayenne is much prettier than I could ever hope to be. Her eyes are huge and blue and clear and untainted by sadness; her skin is clear and unmarked by any of the imperfections on mine (be they freckles or bruises); her hair has never been cut, so it's tangled and auburn and almost touches the seat of her pants, but it's beautiful despite this.

Cayenne is so named because when my mom was pregnant with her, she ate everything with cayenne pepper. I remember, when my father was passed out on the couch, my brother was smoking weed, and she was lying in bed so weak she could hardly move, making her plates of chopped pickles drowned in the stuff, cans of Mountain Dew with about five shakes of it, bowls and bowls of chocolate ice cream with almost a whole carton of the stuff mixed in. Cayenne is a bright spot in my life. I bring food home for both my chronically depressed, chain-smoking brother and her, but, when I give the stuff to her, I feel almost like a mom, providing for her baby.

Because she sort of is my baby. She sees me, immediately breaks into such a smile that one would think she hasn't seen me for years, and sprints up to me with Snuffy held by the scrap of one ear. "Tin-tin-tin-tin-tin!"

I drop my backpack and scoop her up, twirling her around until she squeals. "Hey, baby girl. Who's Tin-tin?"

She jabs a stubby finger into my chest. "Tin-tin."

Apparently now I'm Tin-tin. There have been worse nicknames. I pick up my backpack and, trying to conceal any fear or trepidation I might feel about what will happen tonight, I slide through the screen door and into the place that is my greatest haven and fear at once.

My mother—who looks far too thin and old—is sitting on our living room couch in a faded pink bathrobe, twisting her frail hands a little. My father is pouring himself a scotch.

I will be the first person to admit that my father does not look like someone who drinks and beats his family. My mother must have thought the same thing when she married him.

He is very tall, and, objectively, very handsome to someone who has not seen him with his fist pulled back behind him, with snarling lips and gleaming eyes. He's got brown hair that's just beginning to go grey, bright green eyes, and a gaunt, symmetrical face. Back in the day, my mother and he were probably the dream couple: she was beautiful then, with curly blonde hair and a heart-shaped face.

She told me about them back then, only once, when she was braiding my hair after he had hit me so hard in the stomach that I passed out. She said that, on the night he proposed, they watched the horror flick Eraserhead and she was so scared that she ended up throwing up in the bathroom, and he had gotten down on one knee next to her while she was doubled over by the toilet and got out a ring he had gotten through pawning off his coin collection. "Well, honey," she told me, "isn't that just a right beautiful love story?"

She is a sweet, sweet woman, but she was never cut out for being a mother.

I don't take off my parka. We don't have any sort of heating or conditioning system. Neither of them acknowledge us, which relieves me immensely, and I take my chance while it is available to hurry down the hall (as quickly as I can while holding Cayenne) and out of the dangerous sight of my father.

The first door is my brother's. Inside his room, I hear his voice and a girl's. It still smells like meth; it always does. I slip a sandwich under the small crack between the bottom of the door and the floor, squashing it a little. He won't mind. He's usually so hungry he'll eat anything that's considered edible and is at least half dead.

My room is the last one at the end of the hall. It's also the coldest.

Still, I like it. It's very clean and sparse: the only pieces of furniture are an old wrought iron bed with a nearly collapsed mattress, my wooden desk, and my wooden chair. I don't have many clothes, so I typically just stack them in a corner.

My father has never beaten me in there, so I feel safe there.

Setting Cayenne down on my bed, I hand her the final tuna sandwich, which she gobbles up instantly, and sit down to start on my homework. "Play quietly, okay?" I ask her.

"Kay, Tin-tin." I have to figure out where she got the Tin-tin thing at some point, or it might drive me crazy.

Midnight. I'm almost done with my college Calculus homework, which concerned rotational volumes, which I'm still fairly certain I don't understand at all, when the phone rings. I hear my father answer it, and, after a few minutes, there are screams and stomps down at the end of the hall, from what seems to be the area around the bathroom. And I had almost hoped it wouldn't happen tonight.

I know I have to act quickly. Cayenne has fallen asleep on my bed. I scoop her up quickly, not caring if I wake her, and shove her under my bed just as my father bursts into my room, shaking the house. He's holding my bruise cream in one hand and a small glass jaw in the other.

"So, he" he screams at me, "you've become a slut at last."

"Dad?"

"A _boy_ just called asking if you were there. A _boy. _At _this hour_."

A boy. I'm suddenly very, very frightened. He doesn't even need a reason to beat me, and now that he has one… "Who, Dad? I don't really know any guys, I've told you before."

"Then who is KENNY?"

Kenny. For the love of all that is holy. "Kenny is just a guy I tutor. He's probably still doing homework, and wanted help or something."

"No, little slut, he wanted to _apologize_. Said he couldn't _sleep_."

No. "Dad, please, it wasn't-"

"AND…" He brandishing the bruise cream at me. "What is this?" He thunders. "WHAT is THIS?"

"Bruise cream, dad. People…were starting to-"

"You're fucking ashamed of me, huh? Trying to hide it? Trying to fucking hide what you deserve, you bitch? You little slut? You fucking idiot? What, you think some cream is going to make you pretty? Huh? Huh?"

"No, dad-"

"Shut the fuck up. Just shut the fuck up. Fuck. Fuck." He paces the room for a minute. I stand frozen to my spot by the bed. _Don't let Cayenne make a sound oh God if you even fucking exist please just keep her quiet until this is done._

It seems like an eternity and then something flies by my face and shatters on the wall behind me. It was his glass.

And then he's in my face breathing the scent of stale clothes and women's cheap perfume and hard liquor and this is why it upset my so much to smell it on Kenny. "Guess I'll just have to make sure they don't see your bruises anymore, then."

He is strong and suddenly I am on the wooden floor which is incredibly hard and he is above me, pouring the bruise cream into one hand, and then he rams it into my face and it is cold and slimy and he smears it over, screaming, "Now they won't see! Now you can be beautiful!" He's laughs are like a dog's barking. I am suffocating on it. I am swallowing it.

The hand with the wedding ring is the one he uses to hit the most because it hurts the most. He digs it deep into my stomach and just keeps going.

I have no measure of how long these things last. All I know is that it hurts everywhere and I am crying and he is not touching my face or neck and everything is dark and cold.

I throw up yellow liquid that burns my throat, and he stops hitting me. He's red faced and panting and wide-eyed. We stare at each other for a minute, then he stands up. "Now they won't see them anymore, bitch. And now you're too bruised up for this Kenny asshole to be fucking you anymore."

He leaves.

The house is quiet and very still. The silence rings in my ears after the angry pandemonium of a few seconds prior. Then Cayenne crawls out from beneath my bed, and lays next to me on the ground, where I'm sprawled in a fetal position. "Tin-tin?" She whispers.

"I'm here, baby girl."

"Can I sleep in your room tonight?"

"Of course you can, sweetheart." I try to push myself off the floor, and my right arm collapses under me, sending a burst of fire up my shoulder; I must have sprained it, or something along those lines. "But I think I might have to stay on the floor tonight, sweet pea. You can climb on my bed if you want."

She doesn't move, except to snuggle into my arms and mimic Snuffy licking away the tears that still remain on my cheeks.

I thank God for the existence of cayenne pepper.


	6. Fred the Fuck-Ugly Snowman

My girlfriends keep calling, seemingly in some sort of order, as if they can sense each other: first Bebe, then Lisa, then Red, Rebecca, Nicole, and, finally, Henrietta. I don't answer the phone with any for any of them. I don't want to use the phone after the conversation with the angry, drunk man I just had. Katelin is at home probably getting beaten senseless, and my girlfriends are up into the early morning hours, desperate for my attention. I am just sick of everything.

No matter how I try, my mind won't let me go to sleep. Each time that I drift off, I dream of screaming and fists and crying and I wake up with beads of sweat popping out from my skin. By the time that morning dawns, I have had so many visions of bruises and cuts and angry eyes and shot glasses that I know I have to do something before I go completely out of my mind.

Day drifts by. Girlfriends try to cuddle in the hallways. The guys talk about the new video game everyone's playing, where the main objective is to sell as many drugs and pull off as many heists as possible. I don't have it, since I'm too poor, so I mainly listen.

The day doesn't really start for me until school ends.

Katelin looks very small and sad at the tutoring table, reading a huge book that must be half the size of her torso.

"Hey," I say, and she looks up at me in surprise, as if she wasn't expecting that I wouldn't be here, "what are you reading?"

She flips up the book so that I can see the cover. "Just an encyclopedia. Trying to expand my knowledge, you know."

"Oh." Not much I can relate to on that front. "So, how are you doing?"

"Okay." Her hair is back down again, I notice, but she's not trying to hide her eye anymore; it's looking much, much better.

"I hope that I didn't make things worse when I called."

For a second, she smiles thinly, but then, suddenly, the smile fades and a crease appears between her eyebrows. "Actually, you did. What the _fuck_ were you thinking, calling my house at midnight? Did you think it would be me that answered? Well, it wasn't: I can tell you that much. You think that these bruises just generate overnight? I'll bet that if you studied most of them closely enough, you would see an imprint of my father's wedding ring."

I don't think I've ever been talked like this by a girl. I'm not really sure what to say next.

She keeps going, talking incredibly quickly as if she can't get the words out fast enough. "And saying you couldn't _sleep_! Because of me? What sort of idiot are you, saying that to any family member of mine? Don't you have any sense at all? I would have thought by now that you would have put together some sort of idea of what I'm going through, but apparently you're so wrapped up in your world of alcohol and sex that you can't see anything beyond your own problems. And spending the whole fucking day just fucking with Henrietta and boozing yourself out of your godamn mind? For the love of Christ, Kenny, you are one of the smartest people I know, and you're just throwing all your brains out the window in favor of some shit that will make you happy for maybe the next year or so, and then will absolutely destroy any chance you have of success in life." She pauses to take a breath. "You know something? I've never had anything in my life that would give me any reason to have hope, there's been no motivation to keep trying, but I've still _done_ it. For my whole life, my father has beaten me, my mother has been a wet dishrag who can't do anything to help her own children, my brother has been suicidal and depressed and addicted to drugs, and I've had to do everything I can to protect my little sister from ever going through what I have. I am a mother, and a sister, and the provider of food, and pretty much the only person who earns any money in my family. But I keep going, Kenny, and I keep trying, and so should you."

She's right. I don't even have to think about it. "Do you want to go build a snowman?"

It takes a moment for her to shift out of her angry, venting phase, and, when she does, she looks so confused it's almost comical. "What?"

"A snowman." I repeat. "It's something I always used to do with close friends. I think I have some explaining to do, and I don't really want to do it in a classroom with a bunch of people."  
She regards me sharply for a moment, then gets up. "Sure. Let's build a snowman. But we're going to talk about metaphors while we're doing it. I'm still your tutor."

It's probably the shittiest snowman ever built. There's a ton of snow on the ground, but none of it is the sticky stuff ideal for snowball fights and making snow people, so the snowman, who Katelin named Fred, is perpetually tilting over to one side and starting to fall in half. Grabbing a stick, Katelin stabbed it into the snowman's head. "Okay, now he has a nose." She grimaced, staring at the shapeless lump. "Wow, this thing really sucks. Looks sort of like Cartman, if you take off the fact that it's made of snow and has a stick jammed in its face."

And it does. I would laugh, but there's too much I want to say. "Katelin, about last night—"

"Kenny, really, it's okay. I'm sorry I yelled at you earlier."

"No, I deserved it. I was being a total idiot. But I just feel like I should explain myself, so I can make up in some way for what happened. Just let me do that, okay? And then we can talk about metaphors until we're blue in the face." It sounds so great when I say it. I just wish I knew how I was going to explain everything without sounding like a douchebag.

"Okay, sure." She shrugs. "But be prepared for major novel analysis afterwards, okay. And maybe some snowman plastic surgery."

"Well…uh…I guess that ever since Cartman pushed you down a few days ago…" I pause, realizing what a short time has passed since then, then continue. "…I knew what was happening to you, but I didn't want to think about what it might mean for you. It's a long story that I'd rather not go into right now, but I've know a lot of death and hurt in my life, and I try to avoid it when I can. It's really immature, but that's just how I get through life."

I wait for a second, hoping that she won't ask any awkward, probing questions. She doesn't. "I was being stupid and ignorant when I came to you after being drunk like that, particularly since I had a pretty good idea that was what scared you about—your dad. I couldn't sleep last night for how much I was thinking about you, and I felt like I had to tell you that I was sorry so that I could sleep even a little. I was trying to make myself feel better, but I only made stuff worse for you. I'm really sorry, Katelin."

She's smiling a little at me, but I can't decide if it's a false smiles or a real one. The next question is out of my mouth before I can stop it. "Did he hurt you a lot?"

She clearly wasn't expecting this question. "Well, kind of. He didn't…uh…touch my face, but he hit pretty much everywhere else." There's a really awkward silence, then: "Sorry, dude, I don't think I've ever actually talked about this with anybody."

"No, no, that was a stupid question." I try to transition quickly, but I never was very good at that. "I was thinking: if it's really that bad, maybe you should…you know…go to some sort of shelter. I remember my mom talking about her friend going there at one point."

"Your mom?"

"Yeah, apparently alcoholics tend to mingle with other alcoholics. Anyway, she told me that it was some place about twenty miles outside of town, totally secluded so that the people there are protected. You might want to check it out or something. I think they take families and stuff."

And then she really is smiling. "Kenny, that's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me."

In a flash, I'm as sheepish as a kid with a crush. "Nah, I just—"

"No, Kenny, really. I'm being serious."

"It was nothing." I feel like I'll turn red if she keeps smiling at me like that. God, what is this? In my life, I've had approximately twenty-seven girlfriends, not counting the six I have now, and have hooked up with more girls than I really care to count or admit to. Why am I being such an idiot? "You said you had a two siblings, right? Little sister, big brother?"

"Yeah." Fred's head seems to have fallen off, and she scoops it up in her bare hands and plops it back on his bulbous body. "Big brother is Forrest, after Forrest Gump, which may explain some of his maniacal-depressive symptoms. Smokes a lot of weed, sleeps around a lot, changes his hairstyle too much. Was accepted to a few different colleges, but couldn't afford to go; now lives at home. Dad doesn't beat him, but does insult him a lot." She digs her hands into her armpits to warm them. "Little sister is Cayenne."

I don't think I've heard her right for a moment. "Cayenne? Like the pepper?"

"The one and only. Mom craved it a lot during pregnancy. I was the only one who was named something normal. She's the light of my life. She loves it when I bring home peanut butter and jelly, but loves me regardless of what I do. If I didn't have Cayenne, my life would suck a lot worse. My dad doesn't beat her either. I take all the blows for her, and I wouldn't have that any other way."

I suppose that's admirable. "I have a little sister, too: Karen. I would do the same thing for her." I clear my throat. "I would also take her to a shelter where she could be safe."

Katelin seemed charmed by the idea of the shelter when I had suggested it for her, but once Cayenne has enter the picture, her face immediately grows stony and serious. "Yeah, you're right. I'll check it out tonight."

"Okay, good." I'm suddenly starving. "Hey, do you want to go for a burger at Shakey's?"

"Don't you have a date with one of your girls?"

I realize that, for the first time in a long time, I don't. I didn't answer the phone when any of them called, I didn't make any dates with them today when they tried to talk to me. I have been a pretty awful boyfriend today. And I am about to be worse. "Nope. No dates, weirdly enough. But I have some money, which is pretty rare, and I would like for you to help me spend all of it. Shakey?"

"I've actually never been to Shakey. Is it any good?"

"That depends on your taste buds. Are you an all-American, Kraft cheese sort of foodie?"

"I'm not really a discriminating eater." She says. "I eat everything."

"Are you worried about getting fat?"

"Me?" She laughs. "I hardly ever get enough to eat. I can probably stand having a couple burgers on me. I might even get some curves or something."

"Then you, darling, will be right at home in Shakey." I offer her my arm and we stroll over to my moped.

"You had better not let me die on this stupid thing," she warns me. "I said it before: riding this thing is asking for death, and I do not currently have a death wish."

"I'll do my best," I promise. "Just hold on tight, okay?"

"You know what I just realized?" She says as she climbs on behind me. "We didn't spend a single moment talking about _A Tale of Two Cities_. All we did is build Fred and basically spill our life's secrets to each other. That was pretty fun, though."

She has her arms wrapped around my waist. I get sort of shivery, much to my exasperation. How can this girl do these things to me?

We don't end up talking about _A Tale of Two Cities_, but I do have the best date I've had in ages. I order my usual shit and Katelin, in an attempt to order enough food to feed her two siblings, gets three medium fries, two double burgers, one medium chocolate shake, and, for her brother, who she said is always hungry, she gets Shakey's biggest menu item, the Big Shake, a two pound burger with a quarter pound of cheese.

It's a lot of money, and she apologizes for that, but I enjoy the time so much that the cost doesn't actually seem to matter all that much. I don't think that there's a single conversation topic we don't cover. We talk about the most interesting people we've met (both of ours is Cartman); the place in the world we'd most like to go (hers is Japan and mine is Italy); our favorite ice cream flavor (hers is cookie dough and mine is straight chocolate); our favorite historical people (hers is Anne Frank and mine is John Kennedy); and our favorite type of music (she likes alternative stuff and I like metal). Behind the counter, the same owner who kicked me out of the alleyway two days ago looks at me like I have multiple personality disorder or something, but I hardly pay her any attention.

It is seven o'clock all too soon and Katelin is telling me that she needs to get home before her curfew so that she can feed her siblings and make sure her father doesn't think that she's doing anything bad. Her house is close enough to Shakey so that she feels fine walking, she says, but I think it's more that she fears what will happen if her father sees a boy on a motorcycle of sorts dropping her off.

We stand outside Shakey awkwardly after a shallow exchange, mainly consisting of:

"Thank you."

"No, thank you."

"No, thank _you._"

She hugs me, and, by God, I realize that, despite what she might try to hide under her baggy clothes, she actually does have a body and it feels very, very good to have it against mine. I realize she's very, very small and fragile and I suddenly want to keep my arms around her forever and shield her from the world and everything that wants to hurt her.

She lets go. "Today was one of the best days of my life, Kenny." And walks away.

I watch her go and wonder if this is what loving someone feels like.


	7. What Changes in Four Months I

Four months.

That's how long I've been tutoring Kenny now.

That's the equivalent of fifteen runs to Shakey, seventeen cancelled dates with girlfriends, a jump from a D to an A in four of Kenny's classes, and so many jokes about Cartman that it shouldn't be funny anymore. It's meant that I have magically become a bro, and sit at the lunch table with Stan, Kyle, and Cartman now. They (excluding Cartman) wave at me in the hallway and chat with me in classes.

Stan thinks I'm hilarious. Wendy has become overly protective of Stan, and glares at me whenever he laughs at my jokes—apparently I'm funny now—as if I, ugly old me, am some sort of competition.

Kyle is actually a little in love with me for some reason. Bebe, who has become a

strangely close friend of mine (she, unlike Wendy, doesn't see me as a threat to her boyfriend) keeps telling me that he keeps talking about how he's going to ask me out on a date, but he hasn't done it yet. Bebe tells me that's because he's scared of me, but I honestly can't think of a single thing that anyone could find intimidating about me.

Cartman hates me, but that's probably a good thing, since he hates everything that isn't annoying or evil.

I don't have to be alone anymore, for the first time in my life.

The passing of four months also meant a thousand more bruises from the fists of my father, some of which are so bad that I have days where I can hardly move or sit down for the pain.

It's meant that, at one point, he used a hot iron, something he hadn't tried before.

It's meant that, when Cayenne brought home a lost kitten, instead of letting her be happy, he threw it out into the street and let it get run over by a car. Cayenne cried for days afterwards, and wouldn't let anyone touch her but me, and she clung to me like her life depended on it. It hurt my bruises to be held like that, but I relished every squeeze of her little arms.

It's meant that I have gotten closer to Kenny than I ever thought possible. I have shown him the bruises on my arms, legs, and back, as well as the iron burn on my shoulder. It's meant that after telling me what must be a thousand times that I will get seriously hurt if I stay in the house much longer, I have, as of the past week or so, actually made a concrete decision to go to the shelter. Together, he and I have come up with a plan to get me—and the rest of my family—out of the path of my father's hands.

It's actually a really stupid plan. I'm a little bit embarrassed by how dumb it is.

I would have to take them early, early in the morning, which is when he's typically passed out or so drunk that he can't see straight; it would probably also be next to impossible to actually be at my house the night before we go, because he would beat me, as he usually does, around midnight, making it hard to get up within the needed hours.

Kenny thinks of the idea, and it seems like the only thing that makes sense under the circumstances. I will be spending the night at his place.

Kenny's house isn't pretty, but it's actually a shade nicer than mine is. It's a little bigger, its shutters are in better shape, and, on the inside, the cupboards actually have more than alcohol in it and the faces, though grubby, are much warmer and happier.

The family is seated around the table when we walk in. Kenny's mom is unexpectedly attractive. She's got a soft Southern accent, and fluffy red hair, which makes up for the fact that she's got an incredibly dirty lime t-shirt with "I'm With Stupid" written on it. The second she sees me, she jumps up from the table and wraps me in a hug so tight that I almost suffocate on the scent of alcohol and cheap perfume. "Oh, sweetheart, we've been waiting so long to meet one of Kenny's little girlfriends! It's so nice to meet you, Katelin."

I have a few seconds of being totally confused, and then I realize how this must look to her: a girl in her son's grade, coming over for dinner for no apparent reason. Of course she's going to think I'm some sort of significant others. "It's great to meet you, too, Mrs. McCormick."

Kenny's dad—again, very good looking, in spite of his flat-brimmed hat (which says Scotch on it)—is sitting at the table with Kenny's sister Karen, a little girl with long blonde hair and huge blue eyes. It's then that I realize that this family, including Kenny, is absolutely gorgeous. I've never really thought about why he can get away with having so many girlfriends, but it's pretty clear to me now.

It makes me feel pretty awkward, actually. Most of my life, I've been told that I'm ugly and unworthy, but it's never really bothered me until now, sitting surrounded by beautiful people. But they're all surprisingly kind to me, despite the fact that I'm bruised and pale and unattractive, and they're all just as charming as Kenny. I don't have much time to feel awkward with all the stuff they're talking to me about.

"So, Kenny tells me you're pretty smart." His dad says.

"Oh, I don't really know about that…" I really hate talking about myself, but that's been the topic of conversation the whole dinner.

"What classes do you take?" Karen asks.

"Well," I say, visualizing my schedule, "first period is Advanced Placement Statistics, then comes my elective on Women in Politics, Advanced Placement World Religions, and Advanced Placement French. And then for my last three classes, I go to the local community college, for advanced biology and English stuff, then some medieval history. And that's basically it."

The whole family is looking at me like I'm an alien.

Then Kenny turns to his dad, who's sitting next to him, and says, "Told you."

After dinner, the family leaves us alone in the living room. Kenny's dad keeps winking at him and flashing him the thumbs up, as if I can't see or something. I don't really know what they think we're going to do when they're just sitting in the next room, drinking.

The second they leave, Kenny turns to me and grins. "Thank you for not saying anything about the dinner. That was pretty cool."

"What would I say about the dinner?"

He looks at me weird. "It was a box of Poptarts."

Oh. "Kenny, I can't remember a time in my life that my father has provided anything for dinner. A box of Poptarts is more than I usually expect. And they were pretty good."

He doesn't say anything, but just looks at me in a way I've never seen him look at anyone. I get a little flustered. I'm not sure what the look is supposed to signify. "Thank you," he says again, but this time his voice is lower and a little huskier.

I clear my throat. "Um. The main thing was meeting your family. I sort of love them. Karen reminds me a lot of Cayenne. They should hang."

"I think they sort of love you, too." He smiles. "I'm pretty sure that they were expecting any girl I brought to dinner to be some sort of white trash blonde who would smoke at the table. You were a nice surprise, I'm thinking."

"I'm glad to do it. It's good to be able to say a proper goodbye to you." I toy with the stitching on the sofa. It's about as gross-looking and stained up as the one in my living room, but it's a lot squashier and cushier. "Hey, so let's go over the plan. So your mom is going to call my house and tell my family that I'm sleeping over here for the night, right? And she's going to say you're a girl so that my father doesn't kill me for being a slut, right?"

"Right."

"And then, in the early, early morning, when my father is passed out, I'll go home and take my family to the shelter?"

"Yup."

"Well, it's as good a plan as I think we're going to get at this point."

The phone rings; Kenny checks the caller ID (which is another thing he has that I don't). "It's just Red." He answers it.

Red.

"Hey," he answers, and I tune out the rest of the conversation because I feel like it would be rude to listen in. Outside, the snow is falling very fast and very heavily. I wonder what is going on in my house and immediately feel selfish and dirty. As I have been sitting in a warm house eating Poptarts, Cayenne and my brother have gone hungry. The bruises all over my body begin to ache terribly. On my left shoulder blade, the burn from the iron stings.

In my mind's eye, I see my father reviving the phone call from Kenny's mom, standing in the kitchen with a shot glass in his hand. He talks to her politely, laughing, saying it is just too nice of her to let me stay over and isn't it nice how the girls are still having slumber parties as seniors in high school and he hopes that I won't be too much trouble. Hangs up. What will he do? He's obviously drunk, as he is every night. What shall he do if I am not there to be the representative punching bag?

Will he turn on my brother? My mother? Cayenne? Will I come home in the morning to find my beautiful little sister knocked out on the floor, bruised and battered, waking up so that I can see that the happy light in her large eyes has died?

The very air around me seems to weight heavy on my shoulders, draping me with a thousand worries and cares and responsibilities and dreams that I will never be able to reach.

Kenny is saying to Red, absentmindedly, "Yeah, love you, too."

And, all of a sudden, it is too much and I am crying as I have never cried before because my life seems so utterly hopeless and lonely and empty and there is no one in the world that truly loves me. There is a reason for this.

I have always been too damaged for love.

Ever since I was very young, I have learned from my experiences with those around me—particularly, my father—to expect nothing but sadness and disappointment from relationships of all types. My body has always been too bruised for holding. My lips have always been too frigid for kisses.

I suppose, if a psychiatrist was to talk to me, he would tell me some shit about how I associate sex with the pain of beating, and how that's scared me away from romantic love. I don't know, maybe that's it. It doesn't really matter what the cause is. I have steeled myself against the pain of abuse, and have, in doing so, made myself nearly incapable of making myself so vulnerable as to love and be loved by someone. I'd always told myself that a guy would never come along for me: I was too strong and men wanted women who would depend on them, I was frigid and men wanted lovers, and most of all, men wanted someone beautiful. I am not beautiful, not with my bruised eyes and wild hair and sadness.

Kenny stares at me in alarm for a moment, then immediately hangs up without saying goodbye to Red. A few minutes later, the phone rings again (it's probably Red again, demanding to know why he left the conversation hanging), but by then, he has wrapped one arm around my knees and one around my shoulders, and has picked me up. He's very strong, and carries me as though I weight nothing at all. I cry into his shirt, and don't even ask where he's taking me: I don't care.

Down a hall, into a small room that is bare and drafty like mine. Setting me on the bed and sitting down beside me, he cups my face in both his hands and strokes my tears away with his thumbs. His fingers hardly touch any bruises, thanks to the cream he suggested I get. "Please don't cry. Everything is going to be all right from now on."

I want to believe it. I was so desperately to believe that I will no longer have to wake up and try to conceal the marks on my face, given to me by a man who should be my ultimate caretaker. I want to believe that my siblings will be forever safe from harm, and that they will no longer have to wonder if they will eat dinner. I want to believe that my gentle mother will not have to spend her nights trying to subdue a raging alcoholic. But can all that really be true? I have been living like this for as long as I have memories.

"I can't do this for much longer, Kenny," I say, and am suddenly shocked by how incredibly old and tired I sound. "This life will be the death of me."

"You don't have to do it anymore," he assures me. "Listen: first thing in the morning, you'll go right to your family, and tell them that you have a way to get them out of there. Then, while your father is working- or drinking, whichever he does more often- you'll pack your necessities, climb into that shitty minivan you own, and drive like demons to the shelter and not look back. That's what you're going to do."

Fear and doubt hang on me like weights around my shoulders. I shiver miserably as the frigid air in the old barn permeate my worn parka. "I'm cold."

He reaches for me, and holds me, perhaps in an attempt to warm me, perhaps to comfort.

We are very close. Much to my embarrassment, I begin to notice things. He smells like wood fire (perhaps all of Henrietta's smoking have given him this scent); the rhythm of his heart is regular and quick; his breath was calming and warm; our bodies click with one another.

I start to move away, but he pulls me back. "No," he says, "let me hold you. I've wanted to do it for a while."

I do.

His heart starts to bear more quickly, and I lay my head on his chest—just to listen to it and be calmed by it, I think—only to realize a few second later that I just want to be closer to him. He wraps his arms more tightly around me, and we sit intertwined like that for a few minutes. I get shivery. I'm a fool. A damn fool. This is a boy who has six girlfriends, who has coaxed almost every single girl in South Park into his bed. To let him do this to me would be a folly worthy of the most idiotic of people: I know there's one thing he wants from me. But I'm not feeling like myself tonight, anyway. After I go to the shelter, I might never see Kenny again: this could be the last time I ever spend time with him. I care about Kenny more than almost any other living person (with the obvious exception of Cayenne) I want to make this count as much as possible, and, if that means that he takes something from me, then at least it's something he'll remember me by.

When he unravels one arm, I thought he wanted me to go, but all that he does is tilt my face up to look at his.

It should say something about my experience with these things that I had no idea what was coming next, and all that I was thinking about was how handsome he was.

Then he is kissing me and kissing me and holding me so tightly and I don't know what to do for a split second and then I do.

I lose my mind. His lips make me feel dizzy and wonderful. For the first time I could remember, I can hardly think. My body, mind, and soul are totally focused on responding to Kenny. I push myself into him, and bury my fingers in his hair, deepening the kiss. My body is on fire where his touches mine. I taste him as his tongue explores my mouth, and I make little sounds that I never thought I could make: whimpers, gasps, and moans, and my whole form trembles with overwhelming emotions I have never known.

He breaks it and looks at me like I'm the stars and sun at once. I don't know if he's mastered that look for when he wants a girl, but I don't care one bit. "You're beautiful." It's the first time anyone has ever said that to me. He kisses me again, and goes lower. His lips are everywhere.

Our clothes just slip off. I also don't remember either of us attempting to undress ourselves or one another, it just happens. And he fills me. I am underneath him, and his body is filling mine, and all that I know is joy, pleasure, how he tastes, the scent of him, and the feel of him. We are not cold anymore because we are warm as one. Our bodies are perfect together; I am thinking that I have never felt so whole, and the way he is touching me is gentle and he holds me as if I was precious. Our bodies begin to create a heat, and I naturally began arching and aching for him, and he started making sounds, and something rushes and warms me to my core, and I screamed into his shoulder, and for a moment neither of us were pinned to the earth, we are flying. My body trembles and there are butterflies inside my skull and sunlight blasting through my eyes, and then he cries out and collapses on me, and we breathe one another in for a moment.

For a moment, I think that he must have done this countless times. But that thought flits away as quickly as it came as he begins to kiss my face and stroke me. We do it again, and again, and again, and again, and each time it gets lovelier and sweeter and more amazing and we seem to grow closer and we begin to murmur back and forth to each other, "I love you," and then we are both spent and can hardly move for the sake of exhaustion.

Afterward, he lays there for a moment atop me, then raises his head and strokes my face and kisses me until my lips and tongue are numb. "I love you." He says. "I love you. Life did not exist before you."

I have to ask him. "Do you say that to all the girls?"

He doesn't have much of an answer. "No. None." And we kiss and kiss and are revived suddenly and he moves in me again until we are drenched in sweat and our bodies have given all they can of themselves.

As he slumbers and holds my form to his, I discover how much I can love. All at once, it is as if a floodgate has been lifted and all the joy and happiness and elation I had not allowed myself to feel for my whole life fill me with warmth. I soak in the rush of wonderful feelings that I had never known existed in this life, and I feel my eyes well with tears at the marvel at suddenly understanding what I have read in books for years, what Jane Eyre must have felt when she first saw Rochester, what madness motivated Sydney Carton to give his life, what drove Pip to forgive Estella even when she had crushed him completely.

I am exhausted, but, before I allow my eyes to close, I stroke the hair of Kenny, who I will always remember as the first person to let me love without fear. I kiss his forehead, and thank him silently. I fall asleep thinking that, despite what I might have believed before, perhaps there are such things in this world as true happy endings.

\


	8. What Changes in Four Months II

After dinner, the family leaves us alone in the living room. Kenny's dad keeps winking at him and flashing him the thumbs up, as if I can't see or something. I don't really know what they think we're going to do when they're just sitting in the next room, drinking.

The second they leave, Kenny turns to me and grins. "Thank you for not saying anything about the dinner. That was pretty cool."

"What would I say about the dinner?"

He looks at me weird. "It was a box of Poptarts."

Oh. "Kenny, I can't remember a time in my life that my father has provided anything for dinner. A box of Poptarts is more than I usually expect. And they were pretty good."

He doesn't say anything, but just looks at me in a way I've never seen him look at anyone. I get a little flustered. I'm not sure what the look is supposed to signify. "Thank you," he says again, but this time his voice is lower and a little huskier.

I clear my throat. "Um. The main thing was meeting your family. I sort of love them. Karen reminds me a lot of Cayenne. They should hang."

"I think they sort of love you, too." He smiles. "I'm pretty sure that they were expecting any girl I brought to dinner to be some sort of white trash blonde who would smoke at the table. You were a nice surprise, I'm thinking."

"I'm glad to do it. It's good to be able to say a proper goodbye to you." I toy with the stitching on the sofa. It's about as gross-looking and stained up as the one in my living room, but it's a lot squashier and cushier. "Hey, so let's go over the plan. So your mom is going to call my house and tell my family that I'm sleeping over here for the night, right? And she's going to say you're a girl so that my father doesn't kill me for being a slut, right?"

"Right."

"And then, in the early, early morning, when my father is passed out, I'll go home and take my family to the shelter?"

"Yup."

"Well, it's as good a plan as I think we're going to get at this point."

The phone rings; Kenny checks the caller ID (which is another thing he has that I don't). "It's just Red." He answers it.

Red.

"Hey," he answers, and I tune out the rest of the conversation because I feel like it would be rude to listen in. Outside, the snow is falling very fast and very heavily. I wonder what is going on in my house and immediately feel selfish and dirty. As I have been sitting in a warm house eating Poptarts, Cayenne and my brother have gone hungry. The bruises all over my body begin to ache terribly. On my left shoulder blade, the burn from the iron stings.

In my mind's eye, I see my father reviving the phone call from Kenny's mom, standing in the kitchen with a shot glass in his hand. He talks to her politely, laughing, saying it is just too nice of her to let me stay over and isn't it nice how the girls are still having slumber parties as seniors in high school and he hopes that I won't be too much trouble. Hangs up. What will he do? He's obviously drunk, as he is every night. What shall he do if I am not there to be the representative punching bag?

Will he turn on my brother? My mother? Cayenne? Will I come home in the morning to find my beautiful little sister knocked out on the floor, bruised and battered, waking up so that I can see that the happy light in her large eyes has died?

The very air around me seems to weight heavy on my shoulders, draping me with a thousand worries and cares and responsibilities and dreams that I will never be able to reach.

Kenny is saying to Red, absentmindedly, "Yeah, love you, too."

And, all of a sudden, it is too much and I am crying as I have never cried before because my life seems so utterly hopeless and lonely and empty and there is no one in the world that truly loves me. There is a reason for this.

I have always been too damaged for love.

Ever since I was very young, I have learned from my experiences with those around me—particularly, my father—to expect nothing but sadness and disappointment from relationships of all types. My body has always been too bruised for holding. My lips have always been too frigid for kisses.

I suppose, if a psychiatrist was to talk to me, he would tell me some shit about how I associate sex with the pain of beating, and how that's scared me away from romantic love. I don't know, maybe that's it. It doesn't really matter what the cause is. I have steeled myself against the pain of abuse, and have, in doing so, made myself nearly incapable of making myself so vulnerable as to love and be loved by someone. I'd always told myself that a guy would never come along for me: I was too strong and men wanted women who would depend on them, I was frigid and men wanted lovers, and most of all, men wanted someone beautiful. I am not beautiful, not with my bruised eyes and wild hair and sadness.

Kenny stares at me in alarm for a moment, then immediately hangs up without saying goodbye to Red. A few minutes later, the phone rings again (it's probably Red again, demanding to know why he left the conversation hanging), but by then, he has wrapped one arm around my knees and one around my shoulders, and has picked me up. He's very strong, and carries me as though I weight nothing at all. I cry into his shirt, and don't even ask where he's taking me: I don't care.

Down a hall, into a small room that is bare and drafty like mine. Setting me on the bed and sitting down beside me, he cups my face in both his hands and strokes my tears away with his thumbs. His fingers hardly touch any bruises, thanks to the cream he suggested I get. "Please don't cry. Everything is going to be all right from now on."

I want to believe it. I was so desperately to believe that I will no longer have to wake up and try to conceal the marks on my face, given to me by a man who should be my ultimate caretaker. I want to believe that my siblings will be forever safe from harm, and that they will no longer have to wonder if they will eat dinner. I want to believe that my gentle mother will not have to spend her nights trying to subdue a raging alcoholic. But can all that really be true? I have been living like this for as long as I have memories.

"I can't do this for much longer, Kenny," I say, and am suddenly shocked by how incredibly old and tired I sound. "This life will be the death of me."

"You don't have to do it anymore," he assures me. "Listen: first thing in the morning, you'll go right to your family, and tell them that you have a way to get them out of there. Then, while your father is working- or drinking, whichever he does more often- you'll pack your necessities, climb into that shitty minivan you own, and drive like demons to the shelter and not look back. That's what you're going to do."

Fear and doubt hang on me like weights around my shoulders. I shiver miserably as the frigid air in the old barn permeate my worn parka. "I'm cold."

He reaches for me, and holds me, perhaps in an attempt to warm me, perhaps to comfort.

We are very close. Much to my embarrassment, I begin to notice things. He smells like wood fire (perhaps all of Henrietta's smoking have given him this scent); the rhythm of his heart is regular and quick; his breath was calming and warm; our bodies click with one another.

I start to move away, but he pulls me back. "No," he says, "let me hold you. I've wanted to do it for a while."

I do.

His heart starts to bear more quickly, and I lay my head on his chest—just to listen to it and be calmed by it, I think—only to realize a few second later that I just want to be closer to him. He wraps his arms more tightly around me, and we sit intertwined like that for a few minutes. I get shivery. I'm a fool. A damn fool. This is a boy who has six girlfriends, who has coaxed almost every single girl in South Park into his bed. To let him do this to me would be a folly worthy of the most idiotic of people: I know there's one thing he wants from me. But I'm not feeling like myself tonight, anyway. After I go to the shelter, I might never see Kenny again: this could be the last time I ever spend time with him. I care about Kenny more than almost any other living person (with the obvious exception of Cayenne) I want to make this count as much as possible, and, if that means that he takes something from me, then at least it's something he'll remember me by.

When he unravels one arm, I thought he wanted me to go, but all that he does is tilt my face up to look at his.

It should say something about my experience with these things that I had no idea what was coming next, and all that I was thinking about was how handsome he was.

Then he is kissing me and kissing me and holding me so tightly and I don't know what to do for a split second and then I do.

I lose my mind. His lips make me feel dizzy and wonderful. For the first time I could remember, I can hardly think. My body, mind, and soul are totally focused on responding to Kenny. I push myself into him, and bury my fingers in his hair, deepening the kiss. My body is on fire where his touches mine. I taste him as his tongue explores my mouth, and I make little sounds that I never thought I could make: whimpers, gasps, and moans, and my whole form trembles with overwhelming emotions I have never known.

He breaks it and looks at me like I'm the stars and sun at once. I don't know if he's mastered that look for when he wants a girl, but I don't care one bit. "You're beautiful." It's the first time anyone has ever said that to me. He kisses me again, and goes lower. His lips are everywhere.

Our clothes just slip off. I also don't remember either of us attempting to undress ourselves or one another, it just happens. And he fills me. I am underneath him, and his body is filling mine, and all that I know is joy, pleasure, how he tastes, the scent of him, and the feel of him. We are not cold anymore because we are warm as one. Our bodies are perfect together; I am thinking that I have never felt so whole, and the way he is touching me is gentle and he holds me as if I was precious. Our bodies begin to create a heat, and I naturally began arching and aching for him, and he started making sounds, and something rushes and warms me to my core, and I screamed into his shoulder, and for a moment neither of us were pinned to the earth, we are flying. My body trembles and there are butterflies inside my skull and sunlight blasting through my eyes, and then he cries out and collapses on me, and we breathe one another in for a moment.

For a moment, I think that he must have done this countless times. But that thought flits away as quickly as it came as he begins to kiss my face and stroke me. We do it again, and again, and again, and again, and each time it gets lovelier and sweeter and more amazing and we seem to grow closer and we begin to murmur back and forth to each other, "I love you," and then we are both spent and can hardly move for the sake of exhaustion.

Afterward, he lays there for a moment atop me, then raises his head and strokes my face and kisses me until my lips and tongue are numb. "I love you." He says. "I love you. Life did not exist before you."

I have to ask him. "Do you say that to all the girls?"

He doesn't have much of an answer. "No. None." And we kiss and kiss and are revived suddenly and he moves in me again until we are drenched in sweat and our bodies have given all they can of themselves.

As he slumbers and holds my form to his, I discover how much I can love. All at once, it is as if a floodgate has been lifted and all the joy and happiness and elation I had not allowed myself to feel for my whole life fill me with warmth. I soak in the rush of wonderful feelings that I had never known existed in this life, and I feel my eyes well with tears at the marvel at suddenly understanding what I have read in books for years, what Jane Eyre must have felt when she first saw Rochester, what madness motivated Sydney Carton to give his life, what drove Pip to forgive Estella even when she had crushed him completely.

I am exhausted, but, before I allow my eyes to close, I stroke the hair of Kenny, who I will always remember as the first person to let me love without fear. I kiss his forehead, and thank him silently. I fall asleep thinking that, despite what I might have believed before, perhaps there are such things in this world as true happy endings.

* * *

_To whomever requested a lemon: I'm not sure if this could be considered a lemon, but...here you are. Sad to say that this story is almost done, but before I finish, I would like to thank all the people that have read this story. I can't say how wonderful you are and how much you mean to me. I have had such a great time writing this, and I hope you've enjoyed reading it just as much._

_All my love,_

_The Author Lady_


	9. The Unexpected Loveliness

Katelin isn't at school the next day.

Or the next day.

Or the next day.

She's at the shelter now, but I thought she would have told me before she left. I miss her much more than I had thought I would. Each day, I subconsciously anticipate going to tutoring and laughing with her and I remember moving inside her in my cold room and how we clicked so perfectly and how I forgot everything about any of my other girlfriends and how I broke up with all six of them the next morning.

When I get home on the third day after she went to the shelter, I call them.

A woman answers. She sounds maternal and fat and friendly. "Helping Hands Women and Children's Shelter. How may I help you today?"

"Hey, my name's Kenny McCormick. I was wondering if I could talk to Katelin?"

She sounds confused. "Katelin?"

"Yeah. We had called earlier to reserve a space?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah! I remember you two now. I'm looking forward to seeing her here soon."

A minute passes before I can process this information. "She isn't there yet."

"Nope. She was due here in the next two days, though."

Another minute passes, and neither of us says anything. Then she gets it. "Oh, dear." She says.

They find her on Monday.

It wasn't just her. It was everyone: her mother, little sister, and older brother, and her father, in a suicide, as well.

Hunting rifle. Very accurate shot, though usually used as a long-range weapon. At short range, it blew out her entire rib cage and spattered it on the walls of her bedroom. She had been packing for the shelter when he found her.

Everyone at school goes to her funeral, even though no one knew who she was.

The guys don't really know what to say, but they—meaning Stan and Kyle (Cartman, being a sociopath, doesn't really care)-all try to tell me the stuff they think is right. They don't understand what my relationship was with her: they know she wasn't a girlfriend, and they know she wasn't a bro, so they don't really know what she was. It would be no use telling eighteen year old boys that she was the light that lit up my world.

The coffin is only open up to her neck, hiding the fact that she must have no chest left at all.

She looks like she's sleeping. I remember she smiled when she slept next to me; she's smiling a little now. There are no bruises left on her face. The bruise cream must have worked.

Her tombstone is made of white marble, and is placed next to those of her mother, brother, and sister. Suitably enough, her father's tomb is in another part of the cemetery. They asked the person who knew her best to help choose the engraving to be placed under her name. She had a grandmother who was too ill to come. Her father's brother was in jail and had never met her. Her mother was an only child.

They chose me. I picked the only thing that made sense.

Under her name is a date that sets her death as almost six months after her eighteenth birthday.

Under the date is engraved what she was to me: _The Unexpected Loveliness_.


End file.
